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[2008(7) ADJ 390 (DB)]
ALLAHABAD HIGH COURT
BEFORE : ASHOK BHUSHAN AND ARUN TANDON, JJ.
NORTH CENTRAL RAILWAY MENS UNION, ALLAHABAD ....Appellant
Versus
NORTH CENTRAL RAILWAY EMPLOYEES SANGH AND OTHERS ...Respondents
(Special Appeal Nos. 745 and 761 of 2008, decided on
22nd August, 2008)
(B) Election—Holding of, for recognition of Railway Employees Union—Principle of rounding off—Nomination of respondent-7—Validity of—Acceptance of nomination paper of respondent-7, cannot said to be illegal—Burden was on respondent-1 to prove votes polled by respondent-7, would have been received by respondent-1, which is a question of fact—Which could only be decided by leading evidence—Which cannot be done in proceedings under Article 226 of Constitution—And could only be done by way of suit in a competent Court—Thus, submission of respondent-1 that votes caste in favour of respondent-7, should be added as votes of respondent-1, or votes cast in favour of respondent-7, should be excluded from computing valid number of votes cast in election, cannot be accepted—Held, error committed by Single Judge in declaring respondent-1 elected, by applying principle of rounding off—Thus, petition of respondent-1, liable to be dismissed—And judgment of Single Judge set aside. [Constitution of India—Article 226]. [Paras 33 and 34]
(C) Words and phrases—Word “at least”—Meaning and interpretation of. [Paras 18, 19, 20 and 21]
Hon’ble Arun Tandon, J.—These two appeals having been filed against the same judgment dated 23.5.2008, passed by learned Single Judge of this Court in writ petition No. 5872 of 2008, North Central Railway Employees Sangh and another v. Union of India and others, have been heard together and are being disposed of by this common judgment.
2. Sri Navin Sinha, learned Senior Advocate, assisted by Sri Siddharth Singh has appeared for the appellant in appeal No. 754 of 2008. Sri Govind Saran has appeared for appellant in Special Appeal No. 761 of 2008, Sri K.N. Tripathi, learned Senior Advocate assisted by Sri N.K. Pandey and Sri Chandan Kumar have appeared for the contesting respondent, North Central Railway Employees Sangh, the petitioner in the writ petition.
3. It is sufficient to refer the facts and pleadings in special appeal No. 745 of 2008 for deciding both the appeals. Brief facts of the case for deciding the issues raised in the appeals are; the appellant, respondent No. 1 and respondent No. 7 are registered trade unions under Trade Union Act, 1926 of the railway employees of the Zone, North Central Railway. Both claimed recognition as registered unions to interact with Railway authorities qua discharge of various functions and obligations in respect of service conditions and welfare of the employees. Modalities and methodology for electing the trade union, to be recognised by the railways have been finalised by the Government of India namely; ‘Modalities For Conducting Secret Ballot For The Purpose Of Granting Recognition To Registered Railway Trade Unions Representing All Categories of Group ‘C’ And Group ‘D’ Employees Of Indian Railways’. The election process in accordance with the modalities was initiated by the Railways by publishing the election programme in the newspaper ‘Amar Ujala’ on 10.12.2007. Date for nomination was fixed as 25.10.2007. Date of scrutiny of nominations and publication of the final list of unions found eligible to participate were notified as 26th and 27th November respectively while 29th November, 2007 was fixed as date for polling. The appellant and respondent unions participated by filing their nominations. Nomination of respondents No. 1 and 7 were provisionally accepted and their names were shown in the final list of the unions permitted to participate in the elections. After poll, votes received by different unions, the number of valid votes and number of invalid votes were counted and recorded. The details of votes received by the appellant and the respondent unions and one other union namely; Railway Mazdoor Union mentioned in the judgment of the learned Single Judge to which there is no dispute, is to the following effect :
SN Names of Total Total valid Votes Votes Votes
Union (With Electorate votes cast obtained by obtained obtained
regn. No. ) the union as %age as %age
of of valid
Electorate voted
cast
1 NCRES 20593 29.21 34.570
(9168)
7998 11.34 13.426
2 NCRKS
(9275)
29583 41.96 49.662
3 NCRMU
(9160)
4 RMU (By-II- 1394 01.97 02.340
7867)
4. The respondent No. 1 filed writ petition No. 56530 of 2007, challenging the decision of acceptance of the nomination of respondent No. 7, which writ petition was dismissed on 16.11.2007 by this Court holding that election process has begun, it was left open for the petitioner to raise such legal and factual issues after the elections are over. Another writ petition No. 61261 of 2007 was filed by the petitioner questioning the result of elections. A Division Bench of this Court vide its oder dated 12.12.2007 disposed of the writ petition requesting the General Manager North Central Railway, Allahabad to examine as to whether objection, if any filed by the writ petitioner are referable to clause 27 of the modalities and in case such objections are
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